Tag Archives: ghost story

22 Off Ramp in Garden Grove

Nationality: Vietnamese American
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Residence: Fullerton, CA
Performance Date: 4/27/2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Vietnamese

KT: We took this trip to Garden Grove, and they say if you drive by at night don’t take the off ramp to Brookhurst on Garden Grove because there will be an accident. And I remembered getting told that while driving there and for some reason I decided to take a detour instead. And like a minute after I turn off I hear 2 cars crash, it was spooky! It could have been me man!

Me: What did they tell you about the ramp?

KT: They say there was a woman who had a kid in the car when she got in an accident, and the kid died, so now she wanders around the area looking for her kid or something. Or she’s looking for the people who killed her kid, or something like that. My professor told me about some people driving by there who saw a woman trying to cross the road, but they can’t see her until the last second, so they slow down late and stop right in the intersection.

Me: It was already known for accidents?

KT: It used to be, yield to left turn off the freeway, so people coming off at night don’t think there’s anyone driving by there. They changed the layout there, and also that thing I said about visibility. You can’t see people crossing there.

The following article is one of many describing actual accidents that happen at that off-ramp. The stories exist to warn people away from driving in the area, because it is legitimately dangerous due to impractical ramp design.

http://abc13.com/archive/6418270/

 

La Llorona

Nationality: Hispanic
Age: 20
Occupation: Life Guard/Student
Residence: Alhambra, CA
Performance Date: 4/30/2014
Primary Language: English

La Llorona

Interviewer: where did you hear this story?

Informant: My parents.

Interviewer: How old were you when you first heard it?

Informant: Probably like 6.

Interviewer: Do you know were they heard it from? I think they just kept passing it on, it’s like a Mexican story, where my parents are from. They heard it from their parents, I believe.

It’s like a story that’s supposed to scare us into listening to our parents. Let’s see , La Llorona is about a mother and her two kids. The two kids would never listen to their mother and they would always whine, complain, and cause the mother to keep crying. One day the mother, La Llorona, drowned the kids because they kept whining. They were not listening, so that was their punishment. But then La Llorona realized that was a mistake and she just kept crying, and crying, and crying. That’s what La Llorona means, “the crier”. She kept crying herself to death, so her spirit is of her crying.

Interviewer: So why is that supposed to scare you into behaving?

Informant: Because, if you don’t you get consequences from your parents and also if you misbehaved, La Llorona would come and steal you away or haunt your dreams

Interviewer: Is there a specific time of day that she comes?

Informant: probably when the kids are about to go to sleep, when they’re sleeping.

Interviewer’s notes:

Of all the variations of La Llorona, I believe this one to be the most unusual that I have heard. Instead of the cautionary aspect of the tale lying with the vindictive, ghostly Llorona, it comes from the fact that whiney children run the risk of being drowned by their parents. So instead of behaving because La Llorona might get you, one should behave because your parent’s might drown you just like La Llorona did to her kids.

for a different perspective see:https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/lxl01

La Llorona

Nationality: Hispanic
Age: 40
Occupation: Zumba Instructor
Residence: Alhambra, CA
Performance Date: 4/30/2014
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

La Llorona 

Informant: The story of La Llorona is about this lady, who had some children. She drowned, or killed her children. And she would walk, late at night at midnight. She would like walk on the streets screaming out about her children in sorrow. She would be like “Ay! Mis hijos! My kids! My Kids!”

Interviewer: Where did you hear it from?

Informant: Back in my country when I was little.

Interviewer: Who told it to you?

Informant: The kids . . . at school in Michuacan, Mexico.

Interviewer: Do you know anything else about La Llorona?

Informant: She was all dressed in white, with a veil. She had like, I think, signs of blood on her.

Interviewer: Are there like specific people she appears to?

Informant: Anybody, but only at Midnight

Interviewer’s notes:

In this instance, it is notable that the informant remembers motifs and physical details, but not the plot details. Also, she heard the legend from the local kids and not from her parents which would explain perhaps, why the “cautionary tale” aspect has been omitted and why La Llorona can appear to anybody, not just children. The story has a generational skew where the ghost is not quite as vindictive toward the children

Hitchhiking Ghost

Nationality: Caucasian/Hispanic
Age: 15
Occupation: Student
Residence: Alhambra, CA
Performance Date: 4/30/2014
Primary Language: English

 Hitchhiking Ghost

Informant: So there was a traffic accident and a girl died on Main Street between like Atlantic and 2nd street. I heard it from my two friends who heard from a couple of people at an event.

So yeah, there was a traffic accident and she died and now her spirit haunts that portion of Main Street. Like if you’re driving on Main Street late at night and you see like a figure, a girl, hanging out on the side of the street, you have to pick her up or else you will get into a traffic accident. Or like you will die from traffic related accident.

Okay, so, my friend’s, friend’s cousin is the one who told the story. He said that he was driving late one night and that he saw the figure. He didn’t think about it at first but then he remembers “ooooh wait, what about that story”. So he drives around just to see if she’s still there. He pulls over and then she hops into the car, into the back seat. He doesn’t know what to do so he’s kind of like, just driving around, driving in circles. She’s not saying anything, but he looks through the rear-view mirror and she’s still there. Then, he isn’t looking, but he feels like a sense of relief. The he looks back and she’s gone. That’s the hitchhiking ghost story.

Interviewer’s notes:

I consider this story to be an oicotype because variations of this story can be found throughout the world. Indeed, vague details, which may take place anywhere indicate the story is not unique to the setting. Additionally, the “hitchhiking” aspect of the story may be precipitated by the fact, that Los Angeles has a large car culture. A common story such as this one, would be even more easily transplanted in a community so fixated on motor vehicles.

Ghost Captured in Photo

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, from Wisconsin
Performance Date: April 29, 2014
Primary Language: English

Informant is a theatre student at USC who was raised in Wisconsin and comes from 65% German heritage. 

—

Ghost story.

This is something my mom actually experienced. There’s a little bit of backstory to it as well. She and her boyfriend went to this old lighthouse – they actually- they got lost, they were looking for something else and they found this old lighthouse. And they were just taking a whole bunch of pictures. She snapped a couple pictures, looked back at them, and was like “holy shit! I think I just caught a picture of a ghost!” and her boyfriend was like “what? No. try it again.” So she took another picture. “There’s absolutely nothing in front of-“ and you can find these pictures on her Facebook.  I can get you the link or something so you can see them. It looks like an old man. It seriously does. And it’s kinda hard to explain. Because like – it was colder outside, but she had the windows up in the car. It wasn’t a flash on the window; you would know what that was. And we don’t think it was her hair, because hair is pretty easily recognized even if it’s like “ghostly footage” or whatever – it still is pretty easy to see if it’s hair. It’s really strange. My mom does not have the skills to photoshop anything so pretty sure it’s real.  They came back the next day, asked around “is there any history with this lighthouse?” they weren’t actually supposed to be up there, so that’s a thing.  And they were like “well, I mean the owner’s wife died there – I don’t remember if she died gruesomely or not, but he – we assume it was him, the owner, that they had caught.  Or like the original owner- that they had caught on film because it was definitely – I thought it was a guy, my mom thought it was a guy.  Some other people disagreed, but I thought he had a mustache.  There were at least one, maybe two deaths there.  So we think it was probably a ghost.  And very interesting.  They asked around and they were like “yeah, she was killed there, she died there,” near the barn, or the silo or something, I don’t know.

When did you first see the pictures? 

She posted it, probably 2012.  A couple years ago.

Where were they?

I think it was at a lighthouse in Northern Wisconsin.  Kinda close to Green Bay.  You know there’s that mitten that’s kinda like up here – peninsula there.

Were you there?

No, I wasn’t.  But my mom is not one to lie, so I believe her.

How soon after the trip did you see the picture?  Did it get posted right away?

Yeah, like the day after.

My cousin kept trying to debunk it, and my mom kept throwing up roadblocks, so there really isn’t an explanation we can think about.

Is your mother a superstitious person?

Sort of, not majorly.  She’s kinda like me, where she’s not the most superstitious, but sometimes there’ll just be those moments where you like “holy crap” and you freak out.  She’s religious, so if you count that as a superstition – with some people, my sister, do – then I then I guess.

[Informant discovers the photo and shares it]

It’s like hair is the only thing it can possibly be,  but there such a clear face in there.  It’s not in any other picture and she snapped the first two in one go. So if her hair fell over the lens it would have had to do it like super quick.  Once you get down into this area it’s very much so a face.  I don’t know what to believe.

Got any other pictures?

Not of him.  That’s the only one where it appeared.  This is where they were – the Sherwood Point lighthouse.  It’s actually a coast guard owned building now, so I think they weren’t supposed to be up there.

Pretty neat, right? My family’s one and only ghost story.

Did that picture in any way affect your level of belief in ghosts? 

I think I’ve always really believed in them. Not so much in the “Ooh, something’s haunting me” kind of way, But I think that there’s definitely a level of anger that someone can hold towards something that’ll keep around.  I don’t know, I’m a little superstitious. When I was a kid, my sister used to tell me “When you go under bridges, you have to hold your hands up, and when you go over bridges, you have to lift your legs up. When you go past a graveyard, you have to hold your breath” – you know, things like that. So I used to do that as a kid. Now I don’t anymore but there’s a little part of me that’s like whenever I go under a bridge that’s what I think. Whenever I go by a graveyard I involuntarily take a deeper breath, and I’m like “I didn’t need to do that,” but I still do it.

Actually, you know what? I am totally superstitious. I walked past a crow the other day, it was right in front of me, it seemed super chill for a crow. It just kinda looked at me and was like “’Sup,” and kept going.  I freaked out, ‘cause I thought that was super meaningful. And I went and did a whole bunch of research on crow symbolism.

—

 

Informant did not have a direct memorate but rather gave a second-hand account (given that they weren’t there, and it was their mother’s story). The story still had an effect on them and they were quite sure the photo contained a ghost.